Deadlines

I was reflecting that I've heard you ask me once or twice "what is the deadline for task X"?

I can see that you are driven and respond well to challenges and deadlines. That's great. Really great!

Now I have new challenge for you. The challenge is to move from a deadline mindset to a "flow" mindset. I'm not saying you are stuck in a mindset at all. I want to highlight a way if thinking that I find useful and I hope you do too.

There will always be deadlines. If a task has a deadline, of course I will let you know. I tend however only to work with deadlines that are real. I rarely give deadlines that are self-imposed. Certain things needed to happen by a certain time. Real deadlines for real reasons. For most things though if I set a deadline it would be made up.

Let's talk instead about flow. Flow for me is about having an optimal and predictable regular delivery of value. I've come to like designing processes where we limit the number of things that we focus on things at one time. Why? Because I've observed that the fewer things someone has to do at once the faster they do them. Do less to do more.

The key then is to always ask, what am I already working on that I can finish next? Finish it and once it's finished only then take on a new task. I find I have more predictable delivery.

Then, the second element to a flow method is to make sure that you have a really good understanding of the relative importance of the things on your "to do" list. This can be something you do yourself if you really understand what you are doing in relation to your contribution to the whole organisation. If not, that's where you might need a regular discussion on what's important and why.

There's really only two dimensions of importance; urgency and value. It's obvious that you should do low urgency and low value items last and high urgency high value items first. The more difficult questions are around high urgency low value and low urgency high value. That discussion is never black and white but I'd recommend always focussing on value first unless it's a small effort item and avoid urgency demands by planning ahead.

Anyway, my point is that if you limit the number of things you work on at any one time, consistently finish work in progress before adding new tasks and then always start new tasks based on importance we don't need to use deadlines to deliver great results.

Deadlines are often self imposed. They are useful to many if us because it releases us from the decisions around what to do and what to do next. If you rely on a deadline from your manager instead of figuring it out yourself, you have created a burden for your manager to carry that you could carry yourself.

Real deadlines are real. If there's a deadline I will use the term as it really should be used. For everything else, I believe focussing on flow leads to better results, less supervision and more ownership. Maybe you already knew all of this so forgive me if that's the case.

• Limit work in progress
• Finish before starting
• Deliver regularly and repeatedly
• Start based on importance
• Only use deadlines if they really exist

It's a formula which really works.

London Paris

I made good friends on my recent trip to Paris. We were a group of eight, thrown together by our willing to ride 250 miles (400km) from London to Paris in order to raise funds for The Big Issue Foundation.

It all came together beautifully on the morning of the third day's riding. We were heading across Normandy on a plateau with a tail wind, riding in a bunch, taking turns on the front. We were rolling smooth, and it felt amazing. Views across cornfields, sunshine, fresh air, fast smooth road, hardly any cars, working together with good humour and excitement. Paris was 90 miles away and we were cruising. Perfect.

I cycle regularly and so my legs were quite accustomed to longer distance riding. I take my hat off to those on the ride who do not ride as regularly. In the 140 participants, at least 100 I would say were just everyday folk who decided that this is a good cause that deserves their support.  If I felt a little tired (and happy) to arrive at the Eiffel Tower, they were even more so. It's amazing what they did. Truly. Together we raised over £200,000 for The Big Issue Foundation - important funds to help our homeless get back on their feet and back into society.

So, thank you Alman, Sean, Wyn, Mike, Will, Tomas and our guide Barrie for good memories and sharing the journey.

And thank you to over 50 generous friends and colleagues who supported the cause and helped me to raise over £2000 In sponsorship. Thank you.
If you would like to support The Bug Issue Foundation, you can still sponsor me. All donations count.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

I was 21 years old, standing about 100m from the stage at the old Wembley Stadium with goosebumps on my arms, thoroughly enjoying the moment.

It was a warm July evening and Mick Jagger was singing to me. Yes, singing to me, directly at me. It wasn't that he was looking at me or anything so obvious. It was his words. "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you'll get what you need". They hit me.

Now I'm not sure how I'd managed to be a Stones fan for all of my teenage years without having heard that song.  But that's how it was. It was at Wembley that I first heard the song and the timing was perfect.

I'd just graduated from Manchester Uni. It wasn't exactly a celebration. I was in fact quite seriously pissed off. I'd ended up with a grade lower than I had expected. To make matters worse I had missed it by one mark. One mark out of six hundred. You couldn't miss the grade any closer. Despite my appeal to the examiners I could not leave with the grade that I had consistently scored in coursework all through my final year.

So, I was deep down pissed off, knowing I could have done better. It's a horrible feeling, that you let yourself down, but Mick picked me right up and in the course of four minutes turned me inside out and made me feel good again.

"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you'll get what you need".  The message was clear. You make your own success and it doesn't come free. You've got to work for it. It may not always go your way, but try hard, and you'll get your reward.

6 months later and I was listening to the same song on my Walkman sitting on a chairlift in the sun. I had my skis on and I was trying to see if it was possible to ski every high point and every low point in the Espace Killy ski area (Val D'Isere and Tignes, France). I had decided that I wanted to do a ski season and despite being flat broke with my credit cards maxed out, here I was, soaking up the sun and living the dream. Mick's words sounded better than ever because it was my own bloody mindedness that had made it possible for me to be working in a ski resort.  (Oh yes, I skied the entire area that day: non-stop in 6h15).

So, here I am working in an internet start up in 2011.  A little older, a little wiser. One thing remains true. Nothing in life comes for free. Success requires effort, persistence and belief. It also requires laser sharp focus and a view on the horizon that we're headed for. Mick was right, it's the trying, the striving, the effort that gets us what we need. No-one does it for you, you've got to make it happen yourself. You've got to try sometimes.

7 Management Tips Tested on 4 Year Olds

I came down to breakfast today to see a hand written note with childcare tips. My wife had been out the night before with a good friend who we've known for 15 years. Between them they have 7 kids.

On reading the note at first I thought it was a list of childcare tips. After a moment I realised I was mistaken. It was a set of management tips.

Here's the note...

7 Management Tips Tested on 4 Year Olds

And in case you can't read it here is what it says. 7 tips. I added my own explanations.

1. "Squabbling place" - take time out to discuss why they are arguing

This is the pub. If you can't find a pub a coffee shop might do, but alcohol is always more effective than caffeine. A good old chat solves most arguments. Don't go to bed angry.

2. New rule, repeat new rule

If you want to have your people understand the rules, repeat them until they start saying them back to you. You probably need to say it at least 10 times before anyone hears and 20 times before they listen.  Maybe 30 times and they'll understand. 40 times and it might get done that way.

3. Positive praise over a negative situation

Kill negativity with positivity. This is the Richard Branson smile rather than the Alan Sugar frown. Find the bright spots and amplify them, the negativity dries up like a puddle on a summer's day.

4. Sticker for own bum wiping

In business you need to wipe your own bum. No-one else wants to do it for you, so get used to doing your own job. Likewise, make sure your team do their job and that you don't do it for them. Praise any sign that this is happening. It takes 2 years to teach a toddler to wipe their bum properly. It can take longer for managers to let their team do the work.

5. Clear up own mess (e.g split milk)

If you fuck up, clear it up. There's no better way to a P45 than to let others clear up your shit.

6. Own breakfast (youngest 4)

Solve your own problems and encourage your team to do the same. Just don't throw them in the deep end until you've taught them to swim.

7. Find own clothes night before and layout

Encourage your team to make their own plans. Not making plans is not acceptable, however just as kids will get dressed more willingly if they set out the clothes, so will your team be more likely to deliver on plans if they do them, not you.

I can't believe my wife and her pal were talking about work all night. Some people!

Road Trip

I once had a chance between jobs to take a few days off. I had an urge to do something, so I called my brother and a good friend and said, "Let's go to Doolin". They said yes and a road trip was born. This was about 6 years BC (before kids).

Doolin, if you've not heard, is a tiny village on the west coast of Ireland near the majestic cliffs of Mohar. At the time I was living in London. 2 days there, 2 days back for one hell of a night in the pub in Doolin.

I'd last been there when I hitch hiked around Ireland for a 2 week summer holiday when I was a student. It has a youth hostel, a shop and 3 pubs. That's pretty much it. People travel from all over the world to enjoy what's probably the best traditional Irish music to be found.

We arrived at the pub at 4 in the afternoon and left at 2 in the morning. By 9pm lots of local and not so local musicians had turned up and were starting to jam. By 11pm the party was in full flow and by midnight everyone was hoarse from singing along.

If you get a chance, go to Doolin, it's a real treat.

Although the evening in the pub was memorable (if not a little fuzzy), one of the most exciting things that happened to us was on the way there.

When you're a kid, everything is new. Everything you do can be exciting. As an adult you can get used to life. You get into a routine. Domesticated. Institutionalised. The novelty of the unknown is a great thing and to avoid boredom I've always believed that it's worth injecting some randomness into life. More randomness gives more chances for pleasant surprises, delight and serendipity.

As we were approaching Limerick late morning (having taken the overnight ferry from Fishguard to Rosslare), it was of course raining. To spice things up a bit we decided to inject some randomness and we did so by a throw of the dice. Literally.

We wrote down 6 things, one for each possibility when the dice was thrown. Whatever happened we all pledged that we would follow through. To keep up the adrenaline, one choice (number 6) was something that would take us out of our comfort zone, something we wouldn't want to do.

Here are the 6 outcomes;

1. Go to the most expensive restaurant in town and spend as much money
as possible
2. Go to the cinema
3. Bet on a horse
4. Play Bingo
5. Pub lunch
6. Buy instruments and go busking

Ready to commit, 10 miles outside Limerick, the dice was thrown. Up came number 3; bet on a horse. I had never bet on a horse. I was doing something new.

We had to first find a bookies. Driving around town we found one and parked up. Inside, we had a few decisions to make: which race, which horse and how much. All these decisions were made with throws of the dice (of course).

We ended up betting a tenner at 8 to 1 on a race in 90 minutes later that day. So, to pass the time we had a pint in a nearby pub and came back to watch our race. Excited.

As the race developed we got more excited. Our horse actually stood a chance of winning and was doing well. As the finish came near we were all on the edge of our seats. I couldn't believe it. Our bloody horse won!

With our winnings we drove that afternoon to Doolin in good spirits and when we left the pub at 2 in the morning we had just about managed to spend our winnings. What a day, what a night!

The best things in life often happen when you least expect.

So, a recipe for continued satisfaction is to inject some randomness and keep finding new things to experience. I guess that's why I love travel, love working in start-ups and love the rapid changing world of technology and the web.

My grandma once said some wise words to teenage me, "There are different joys at every stage of life". Very true. I would add, "Never stop trying new things. Most things remain to be done".

Feeling Really Damn Good

I was struck this week by a strong reminder of something I've always believed to be true. If I'm honest with myself though, perhaps I haven't always lived by this belief as much as I could. It was a good reminder.

In a restaurant in Lisbon, I was with two colleagues after a long but good day at work. We were all from different countries but the conversation flowed, we laughed, we relaxed and we were having fun. It was midnight and the night was warm.

We shared stories, jokes and opinions. And in doing so we were revealing ourselves. There were no pretensions, no bragging and no taking the mickey. We were just being ourselves and our appreciation of each other deepened.

So what?

Most people, most of the time in my observation are not true to themselves. They follow other people's rules, wear clothes to fit in with what other people think, say things to create an image of themselves that they want to portray to others. It's pretty rare to just be yourself, especially at work.

That looks like fun

As soon as you be yourself, your real self, you have a feeling. I'm not sure I can describe it, but I know it when I feel it.

And when people in groups start being themselves, others do the same. It's contagious and in a good way. Sometimes it can create tension, but at least that tension is transparent, not hidden away. Issues and problems when out in the open are no longer problems, they are opportunities to do something right, to make something happen.

The best performing teams that I've led are the the teams where I've been myself. I'm generally a responsible person but I too have an anarchic side which comes out to play every now and again. In those teams, my maverick nature was not hidden. Equally, my frustration when I wasn't happy with the quality of work performed wasn't hidden either. We did good together, we rocked.

As Primal Scream once noted, "Together we got power, apart we got pow wow".

When each person can be free to be themselves and express themselves through their work they come home at the end of the day knowing they did something meaningful and look forward to waking up and doing more.

High performing teams are honest teams. The first step to an honest team is where people be themselves. Leaders can take the initiative and be themselves first. It takes courage but it feels good. And, paradoxically it's the path to success.

Listening to Eagles Of Death Metal high over the Bay of Biscay, writing down these thoughts I feel good. Really damn good.

Go live. Be yourself, feel good and enjoy the ride.

Wanted, Dead or Alive

There's a reality that exists where you are alive.  That's the reality that you currently inhabit, I hope.

There are also realities that exist when you do not exist.  That reality was in the past, but it will also come to be again in the future. The one where you are unborn or deceased.

Both realities are equally valid.  They just occur at different times.

Time is a dimension of the universe.  Beyond height, width and depth it's the most obvious 4th dimension.  (Physicists by the way talk about 10 dimensions in our observable universe. I can't get my head around that, but apparently it makes sense mathematically).

A 4 dimensional cube

Everything is relative.  For example, distance is relative to the person observing it.  I just moved 2cm to my right in my train seat. To the person standing on the train platform I just moved 10 metres in the same time.

Just as distance is relative to the person observing it, so is time. You are alive because you are the one observing yourself.  You cannot observe yourself dead.  But the reality of your non-being already exists, it's just that your position in time relative to it does not allow you to observe it.

If that's the case - I am already dead. I am alive and dead at the same time, just in different realities.  Fortunately I experience the reality where I am alive, not dead - and I appreciate that.

This is a strange realisation.  But strangely liberating.

Once you see life in pure relative terms with no absolutes, it starts to make more sense. You really appreciate the moment.  You wake up each day with a zest to live and enjoy the moment.  In the history of the universe, it is almost nothing.  But we know it's not nothing, it's everything.

Live life knowing you're already dead.  Try it.

How To Be Number One In Google

At last!  After 10 years of trying, I can now say I am number one in Google.

No, I am not some boiler-room SEO sales guy.   Yes, I do have an ego.

Search for "David Norris" and you get me as number one.  Well, you do if you are me, today, from the UK.  Who knows if this is a Google A/B test.

Joking aside, this is a clear sign that Google are taking on Facebook and building a social strategy.  What better incentive to get people to complete their Google profiles than to provoke their ego.  "Want to be number one in Google for your name search?  Get your profile up to date".

I noticed this because I was checking Google Analytics for the traffic to my Google blog (Blogger) and saw a spike in traffic yesterday.  I looked at the source and keywords used and saw a large number of searches for my name delivering traffic.

I did the name search and saw the screenshot above with my name number one with my Google profile with an "edit" button. (Of course! Because I have a Gmail account).   As I use Picasa and Google Contacts, my profile is starting to become very integrated.

It's clear, Google are in battle.  Let the games commence!

Why Your Weaknesses are Your Strengths

My grandma once told me a story about how my younger self was prone to impulsive urges.
We were walking past a shop and in the window was a toy car. I really wanted that toy car and started pleading with my grandma to buy it.

She asked me how much pocket money I had and whatever I had was not enough. She said that we could come back on the weekend when I would have received some pocket money and have had a chance to save up for it.

I was not happy. I did not want to wait until the weekend. I can't imagine it was a pleasant scene. Still, my Grandma (rightly so) stood firm and we did not buy the car. Not then and not at the weekend because by then I was no longer interested in the car.

She told me this story about my younger self when I was a teenager. She said she was worried about my impulsive nature. It's true, I do have an impulsive nature. And I love it. I've learnt to control spending urges, but there have been many times in life when this side of my character has served me well. I've done many unusual things in life that have left a richness of experience and that in part is due to my willingness to make instant decisions and "do".

Impulsiveness can be a weakness, it can also be a strength. The same is true I find of most personality traits. It all depends on context. Most traits have a use so if you can understand better who you are and put yourself into situations that suit your personality, you'll find a good path.

Very persuasive, tenacious and curious? Great if you are an investigative journalist or sales person. Not very good at writing? Perhaps sales works better for you than journalism.

I don't actually believe that we have "strengths" or "weaknesses". I believe instead that we all have certain personality traits that are amplified, that we use and abuse and that in the right context can be a strength.

Therefore if you are interviewing for a job, either as a candidate or as a recruiter, consider it a dating game. You're both trying to assess if this person is the right "fit" for the job. The right person for the job may well be narcissistic, impetuous and driven by self-doubt. Or gregarious, conservative and self-confident. Or not. It's all about the fit at that moment in time.

There are no strengths and weaknesses, only context.

When Is Too Much Cheese Fondue Too Much?

Is there a limit to how much cheese fondue we can handle?

Yes, and it's about 50 servings.

Huh?

Maybe I'm not making sense so I'd better explain myself.

Back in 1990 a young David Norris left university in the midst if a recession with limited career options. (Theology as a degree isn't exactly vocational unless you want to be a priest - and as an atheist I wasn't sure I could be convincing at interview). So, at the relatively young age of 21 I decided I still had time on my side and could do worse than follow my passion.

With student debt to forget, I took the train to Dover in early December, the ferry to Calais and a train to Paris. I muscled through the metro system in rush hour to get a night train south. I woke up in Bourg St Maurice in the French Alps with about £100 to my name and I took a bus to Val D'Isere with my backpack, ski boots, skis and a burning desire to find a way to stay there and ski for 5 months. Nothing else mattered.

I had the advantage of speaking some French. So I knocked on doors for 3 weeks asking for work. I found a place to stay during thus time, sharing an apartment for 3 with 10 other ski bum hopefuls. (Yes, it was smelly, messy and wild). I made friends and it was through a friend that I heard about a job in a restaurant kitchen. Lesson 1: networks bring opportunities.

As my credit card was maxing out I managed to persuade this restaurant to take me on. I was to be a "plongeur". And this is where the cheese fondue comes in. A plongeur is a kitchen assistant and wash up. They didn't know it when they hired me and I didn't know it either but they had just hired the best damn plongeur in history.

I was super motivated. I was getting to ski every single day. I would wake early, be on the first lift and ski to 3 or 4. Then, shower, change, snooze and get to work for 6. Because I wanted to be out early skiing the next day I wanted to fully optimise everything possible and be ready to leave work as soon as possible. The earliest was midnight. On a busy night it might even be 2am.

Yes - that really is me

Cheese fondue is served in a ceramic pot. It's mainly melted cheese with some wine and a few other secret ingredients. Dunk dried bread into the cheese. A local speciality. Indeed our restaurant was a local speciality restaurant. We served meat fondue, cheese fondue, raclette, steak tartare (raw minced beef steak) and other high protein feasts.

There were two chefs and myself in the kitchen, a waitress, the owner and his wife. On a busy night we would turn 100+ covers. The French chefs and I kept ourselves fired up with plenty of Dead Kennedys punk classics. They knew all the words.

I was paid about £150 a month. Accommodation included. I paid £60 a month for my season-workers lift pass, then I had some pocket money for ski servicing, beers and food. Slave labour. Loved it.

My main job, apart from washing up was to prepare the desserts. I was an expert at classic ice cream creations such as Banana Split, Peche Melba and Cafe Liegois. The cheese fondues would be stacking up as I prepared the desserts because of course, it's when the main course is brought in that the desserts are then ordered. It's a double whammy because not only have you got more washing up to do you have less time to do it because you're having to prep desserts. Actually, it was really a triple whammy because on a busy night I had to also keep the flow of the crockery and pots back into service. Doing that meant less time for desserts and even less time for washing up.

At 50 fondues a night the system (me) would go into meltdown. Even though I had perfected cleaning fondue pots with a scraper, I was struggling to get the pots back to the kitchen in time and do the desserts. By midnight I had the entire restaurant stock of pots, pans and crockery stacked up in a pile. It would be a long night.

Try washing up 50 of these

I learnt a lot those 5 months that I have found useful at work ever since.  The main lesson learned though is to watch out for triple whammies. As people add more tasks or projects to the mix they sometimes forget that gives them less time to do the same jobs they already have. Also, if volumes of transactions multiply at the same time they'll have even less time to do the second job and even less time to do the first job. Meltdown is always on the horizon.

So, in a growth company, my advice would be always to think about the proposed operational solution not only in the present, but in the future as well - and in a future where you are doing twice as much business.

Triple whammies happen all the time and when they do the only solution is to dig yourself out of a hole and fix the mess. By then you've probably caused some damage and you may have lost staff, customers or suppliers. That sucks.

You need to know how many cheese fondues is too many.

Why COOs love roundabouts

Approaching a roundabout one early morning last week, I was riding to work on my bike, crossing through Richmond Park. It was relatively quiet with a few cars and bikes and the deer were happily munching on grass in the fresh morning air.

I sailed through the roundabout without slowing down. Almost at the same time but not quite, another bike came through from another direction. And a few moments after that a car flew through. None of us slowed down, we didn't need to. It was all fluid, smooth and unintentionally synchronised.

At that time there was no need for a roundabout. We could have all managed without one. Later in the day however, with more traffic, a roundabout would become very beneficial. Someone had wisely built one.

A roundabout is both a physical technology and a social technology. Physical because it requires certain techniques and materials to build, social because it requires rules and behaviours to have benefit. We developed roundabouts to solve a volume and interaction problem.

Growing companies have the same challenges as the road traffic network. As volume and traffic builds, more processes and organisational structure (social technologies) are needed. Plus, more servers and work space are needed (physical technologies).

The CEO sets the direction. He/she says, "this the horizon we're headed towards and here's why". It's a "what" and a "why" focus. The COO however takes responsibility for how we reach that horizon, getting the right team together at the right time, building enough (but not too much process), find the best way to make the team perform together. It's a "who, when, how much" focus.

As a COO therefore I need to figure out if give way signs, roundabouts or traffic lights are needed. I need to build junctions and roads and I need to do so with a sharp eye on making sure the costs and revenues are supporting that investment.

With a tech start up, the COO role is particularly relevant. How many people to hire, in what order, how many servers to pay for, building systems for organisational effectiveness...these things are always important in any business, but in a tech start up the impact is amplified many times over. Some companies grow at 10 to 20 percent a year in revenue, people and infrastructure. For start ups, add a zero to any number. 10 times as fast. Traffic can hit your junctions pretty quickly and you need to know whether to put in place a give way sign, stop sign, roundabout, traffic lights or flyover.

That challenge of building a team and product to make possible a vision is one I love. I guess that's why I'm a COO. I love roundabouts.

Stay on the Yellow Brick Road

The path most travelled and the path of least resistance are often the same.

On a recent supermarket trip I was at the check-out.  I saw the usual chewing gum, cooking magazines, batteries and chocolate on display.  High profit items that customers impulsively buy as they wait to pay for the rest of their goods.  I wonder, if supermarkets had to rely on people only buying what they came to the shop to buy, would they actually make a profit at all?

On this occasion, I had to deal not only with the persuasion of my inner self ('hmmm, I really fancy some chocolate right now') but also with the persuasion of my kids who were asking for lollipops and magazines with free plastic toys.  To avoid giving in to my kids I felt it necessary to not yield to myself as well.  In the process, our local supermarket missed a few extra pounds profit and our family saved some unnecessary expense.

Marketing folks have of course always understood that to generate a customer response they need to place the goods and services as close to the customer's existing path as they possibly can.  The supermarket checkout is a classic example and has been taken to new extremes these days by almost every retailer.  If I try and buy a bottle of water at the airport at the newsagent or chemist I will inevitably meet with a queuing system that sees me waiting for the next available checkout whilst I have a chance to view almost all the high profit impulsive purchase products that the retailer has to offer.  Chocolates, crisps, suncream, ear-plugs, travel pillows, tissues....the aim is to convert paying customers to higher paying customers.

Marketing folks online also get this.  Why do you think Google Adwords has been so successful at generating results for marketeers?  Because the potential customers are already there.  In this case the challenge is not to convert an existing customer, the challenge is to acquire a new customer.  As we know that potential customers are already on Google (and we know their intentions from their keywords) we can take advantage of their existing path and offer them our products and services.

Likewise with TV advertising.  You wouldn't ask parents to 'please come downtown tomorrow to view the new home cleaning product advert on a big screen'. No, you'd probably put the advert on a kids TV channel hoping they'd see it whilst they watch TV with their kids.

The best way to make change happen is to find and use the path most travelled.

Managers in businesses however don't quite get this.  If they have a program of change that they want to achieve, they need to think marketing and they need to think about distribution channels, paths and existing behaviours.  So many don't.

It's essential to start thinking about internal comms in the same way as external comms.  Who are my audience?  Where can I reach them?  How do I integrate my message into their existing behaviour?  How can I get the results I want from their existing environment?

In a previous job, our tech team were trying to figure out how to build knowledge and awareness within the customer support team about how our products worked.  Their solution, although commendable for the effort put in, was ineffective. They decided to create blog and wiki where they would explain how things worked.  New posts would be available by RSS feed.

What needed to happen for this to work was that all the customer support people needed to have a separate login for the wiki.  Then, they all needed to configure their email client to pick up the RSS feed.  Then they needed to remember to check the RSS feed folder in their inbox on a regular basis and read the articles. Sounds dead easy if you work in tech. It failed.

Imagine if our supermarket had a separate room for all of their high margin add-on sales.  You had to go there specifically in order to see the product offerings.  And you needed to pick up a separate basket in order to carry these products to the check-out in addition to your main trolley.  They wouldn't sell anything would they?  Of course, not.

The path most travelled is why the supermarket check-out system works for the add on sales.  The path most travelled is also the reason the tech wiki failed.

For the tech wiki project to work it needed to use the systems that the customer support staff were already using on a daily basis.  There were three; the company back office system, the CRM database and email.  Anything outside of these three systems was irrelevant because support staff were busy enough dealing with these three systems to think about adding another.

So, when trying to introduce a change to an organisation, focus on making your change happen using existing pathways.  Making change happen is hard enough.  Having to create new pathways at the same time makes it even harder.

As a bonus, not only is the path most travelled the easiest place to introduce your change, it's also the path of least resistance.

No matter what their discipline or function, the more a manager thinks like a marketeer, the most likely he or she will succeed.  Be where people are and be where they are receptive.

Find and use the path most travelled. It could be your yellow brick road.

Why in the Future We Will Own Less

Ownership.  It's over-rated.

I grabbed some mountaineering gear from my cupboard and packed my bags to head to the Alps for the weekend for some ski touring.

I wondered, how many ice axes are there in the world sitting in cupboards and how many are actually being used right now? Maybe 99% are in storage, the rest are in use. Same goes for cake mixing machines, suitcases and tennis racquets. To a lesser extent, cars and computers.

As human population explodes across the planet, as natural resources dwindle, as consumption and desire for goods and services increase because of increased wealth; we will need to adapt. I am an optimist. I see humanity as a self organising complex adaptive system. We make mistakes, we figure it out. Before we destroy our planet? I believe so, yes.

So what will the next 50 years bring?

I think it's pretty obvious and it's already starting to happen; we will increasingly (but not completely) discard "ownership" of property and instead share and exchange more than we've ever done before. Where the costs of ownership are too much to bear for a single individual, that's exactly what we do. For example, we'll buy an airline ticket, not an entire airplane. Unless you are super duper rich, but even there you can use Netjets and share a private jet.

The cost of ownership of everything will go up. We've already optimised the cost of production So there's a limit to how cheap things will become. Primark, Lidl, Walmart - these guys run it pretty lean already. So, it's inevitable. Owning things just won't make sense.

I'm not saying that we will not own stuff. Of course we will. You wouldn't want to wear my shoes and you wouldn't want to wear mine. We'll still own shoes. Maybe not as many pairs.

What we will start to do is to figure out how to share more. There's already a few examples out there doing very nicely. Why own CDs when you can stream music from Spotify on a subscription? Why own your own car when you can use a pay as you go one with Streetcar? Why own a holiday home when you can rent an apartment from HouseTrip?

There are 5 distinct types of consumption that I can identify

1. The producer-owner-purchase-model.
Here, someone produces a product (say a car) which someone purchases for cash. Very common across the world and a great way to see the benefits of division of labour and trade as a foundation for the creation of wealth. Sustainability: very difficult because a lot if products are not used, discarded or left in cupboards.

2. The distributor-rental model
Many people can use the product on a subscription or one time rental basis. Much more efficient.

3. The secondary-reseller-market model
You don't need it anymore? Sell it on to someone else. At least this way the product is used by more than one person.

4. The charity model
Give it away when you don't need it anymore. Take it to the charity shop, then they will give it to someone who needs it or, they'll sell it to someone to make money.

Then there's recycling of course. And maybe communism. There is however fifth way, and I'm convinced that due to evolutionary necessity we'll see more of it very soon.

5. The fifth way
We will create marketplaces to trade goods and services that don't use cash as currency. Instead of going shopping, you will connect with your community and offer and receive favours. You will lend out the things you own but rarely use and you will borrow the things you rarely use but don't own. The taxman will hate this if course.

This is not communism with joint ownership. This is peer to peer trading at a hyper local level. You will accumulate points of some type as you lend and you will burn points as use consume.

These marketplaces are already possible with the advent of PCs and mobile phones. As connectivity becomes better, we'll start to see goods themselves connected to the net with their own unique IP address and history. Objects will connect in the same way that people connect and people will connect with objects and objects will connect with people.

We will see highly targeted and relevant sharing, bartering and exchange websites and services.

Over the next 50 years we will transition through necessity and through efficiency to only own what we need to own. The rest we will rent or borrow.

It's the only way.

The Experience of Others

You're sitting in a restaurant having a great time, in fact it's a wonderful evening.  You have a good round table with a bunch of friends, the food is fantastic, the service is excellent, the wine is flowing.  The next day you get an email from the restaurant owner asking to rate your visit and you give it 5 stars.  It was fantastic.

Mrs Restaurant Owner is very happy because her customer was deeply satisfied with the experience.  She also runs a good business so she made some money that night.  Overall, it was a success for everyone involved.  Fantastic guest experience, good business, everyone is happy.  Wonderful. Beautiful. Perfect.

Ah. Experience.  That's a troublesome thing you see because it's actually quite difficult to establish what precisely was it about the experience that was good.  Was it the conversation?  Was it the company?  Both of these things?  Or the food? Or the seating configuration?  In fact, it's all of these and much more.  Experience is an emergent phenomenon.  It's emerges from a set of relationships, objects and timing in a specific moment for a specific individual to feel, well, something.

Product managers of a website have the same challenge as a restaurant owner.  They need to create an emergent set of experiences that support the business objectives.  Those emergent experiences could be for example, ease of use, joy, engagement, desire, advocacy (telling others), typing in credit card numbers, or creating a profile.

A Product Manager is an experience engineer.

Creating something which is emergent is not easy.  It's bloody difficult.  If everybody could do what Apple have done with their products in the last 10 years they would have done, but they didn't.  If something is difficult to do, it's difficult for others to copy.  And creating emergent systems that create wonderful experiences is extremely difficult. It's part art and part science.

In this world of emergence first you need to understand the systems from which your experience will come from.  The restaurant owner looks at all the details, from hiring of chefs, their kitchen organisation, the staffing rotas, the buying of ingredients, the menu design and hundreds of other small details and tries to create repeatable patterns of success that result in emergent experiences that restaurant goers rave about.  It's difficult in a restaurant and it's difficult on a website.

This web of interrelated influences that creates the emergent behaviour is a 4D world.  It's like the web itself, connected nodes of influence that act like the synapses in our brain, triggers firing behaviour from one sphere to the next. The fourth dimension is of course time, because each customer interacts with your company several times in several ways in different states of mind at different locations.

A creative product manager will first try to understand the web of influences, understand the triggers and amplify the ones that work, as well as trying new things that could be new influences and triggers.  All the time, measuring the impact as best she can.

Here's the thing though, experience can never be fully measured.  It's indescribable, intangible.

I can try and explain to you how I felt thinking this through on my walk up Shaftesbury Avenue this morning, Run DMC pumping through my headphones, excited because I'd pulled together some thinking that I'd been dwelling on for weeks, rucksack on my back, thinking of my next ski touring trip.  I could try.  No-one can ever really feel that except me, at that time, in that place with my history, future and present before me.

You can measure many aspects of experience, many dimensions.  Snapshots. Like the restaurant rating from the delighted customer.  You cannot really feel the experience of others, but you need to do your damn best to try.

As a product manager you are dealing with millions of those experiences.  And furthermore, you are building an interface that your customer will experience using a team of other people.

Building great experiences for others, through others.  A tough, but rewarding challenge.

London to Paris by bike

Did you know that life expectancy if you're living rough on the streets of London is only 46 years old?

The Big Issue helps people to help themselves. By buying magazines for £1 and selling them for £2, vendors have a chance to make a living and a way off the street. I want to help The Big Issue help more homeless peole to help themselves.

So - I’ve signed up for the London to Paris bike ride 2011.

I’ll be cycling 230 miles over 3 days, 90 miles of which will be in one day, and it's all on behalf of The Big Issue Foundation.

The Big Issue Foundation is dedicated to the well being of Big Issue Vendors, working with over 2900 individuals across the UK. Their skilled staff work one to one with vendors, tackling issues ranging from health and accommodation through to money management and aspirations.

The Big Issue Foundation is about taking control, moving forward, gaining independence and rebuilding lives. They exist to enable vendors to continue on their journey away from homelessness.

You can help support me, and The Big Issue Foundation, by making a secure online donation.

Click on the link below:
http://my.artezglobal.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=310397&Lang=en-CA

So far the tech-media community in London have helped me raise over £1000!  Please help push this amount higher.

Thanks for your support!

Once upon a time in Soho

I was having lunch with a friend in a lovely vegetarian café in Soho this week and we were talking about work.  He and I work in different companies, different jobs, but we share an interest in how the world works and a desire to learn.

He said, 'The bit I don’t get, is how to get my point across to the decision makers.  I can blind them with logic, I can build a great presentation….'

He was struggling with what so many of us struggle with, influencing others.  A few moments later we went back to the topic and I said, 'So, what other ways are there do you think to get a point across?'  He started thinking out loud and after a few sentences he started getting warmer when he said, 'metaphor'.

I find that most people use a, rational approach, a deductive logical approach to solving problems and indentifying opportunities.  Think it through, understand cause and effect, then put a solution together.  The trouble is if you want others to adopt your solution, telling them so in a rational way doesn’t have the impact and influence.

How to get your point across?

I said to my friend, 'You could tell a story.  Stories capture attention because we’ve been wired for tens of thousands of years to communicate using stories'.  (For example, Jesus told parables, he didn’t  state a moral code as such – he explained what  people living that code did).  I went on, 'it may be that you had a vivid conversation with a customer about your product and this validates the conclusion you came to using data and logic.  If you tell the story first, then provide supporting data, you’ll have way more impact'.

(Of course – be sure to tell stories that support your rational conclusions, not the other way around.  Anecdote is not data.  Fool others, but don’t fool yourself – be sure the data supports the anecdote).

We continued our conversation and discussed the presentation methods and sales techniques that really work.  Logic featured as back up, not a leading strategy.  Other than stories, we identified using imagery, analogies and experiences. 

It’s no co-incidence that I started writing this blog post as a story.  I was hoping it  would capture your attention better than it would if I just started out with explaining how to get a point across.  Well did it?

Remember – we have two brains.  A logical one and an emotional one.  The emotional  one always wins the battle for influence and the triggers you can use  (stories, images, experience, patterns) are very different to the way in which you came up with the solution (logic, analysis, reasoning).

So, by all means solve a problem.  To get others to act on your solution figure out how you can tell a story.

My friend and I will be meeting up in another month.  Maybe I’ll bring you back another story.

The Smart Arse Rule

You hear people talk about 'working smart'.  They might say, it's good to work hard, but it's better to work smart.  And then some people insist you can work hard and smart.  Oh yeah - and be a parent, husband/wife, healthy, happy, blah blah.  Hmmmm.


All of this falls under a conversation in the pub around 'work-life balance'.  


Here's the thing.  Nothing comes for free in life. If you want results, it requires hard work.  In fast moving growth businesses, getting results from putting in a 9-5 day is extremely difficult, almost impossible.  Personally I've always wanted to do more in life than work, so I've tried to do that, with moderate success.  It gets quite challenging if I'm honest with 4 (lovely) kids aged 2 to 6, a job in a tech start-up and commuting in London.  


I don't claim to have balance as such.  Nor do I aspire to.  Instead I get by and I'm pretty productive at work and have a life outside of work.  Rather than describe it as a work-life balance I'd call it 'surviving on the edge of chaos'.  To survive, I have a simple rule that I apply when trying to balance the week.  It's called the 'smart arse' rule.


Before I explain the 'smart arse' rule and how I've used it, let's touch again on balance.  Balancing what?  What you want to get out of life is different to me - so this is a really personal thing.  For me I need the following; first of all, look after my health.  Keep fit, get enough sleep, eat well.  If I can do that, everything else follows.  Next, pay attention to and look after my family.  Maybe that should come first, but to be honest if I'm a grumpy unfit and sleep deprived shell I can't do it very well. So they go hand in hand.  And looking after my family means being with them. There's a time requirement,  I can't do it on 2 hours a week.  It's a big commitment.  Part of that involves chores, admin, sorting stuff out and running a household with my wife.  Stuff like doing the washing up, moving he lawn, sorting out the car insurance.  Blah. And actually spending time with my kids not doing chores.  Then there's work.  I am ambitious.  I want to succeed.   Not so that I can rule the world, rather it's really so that I can live life with a purpose and have a sense of achievement in having pushed myself to be the best I can be.  What else?  A need to learn, to absorb knowledge, to master skills and to teach others those skills.  Distil and synthesise thoughts, concepts and continuously chase the answers to big questions.


Just how to survive these chaotic ambitions?  


The 'smart arse' rule


About one or two decades ago I worked in a ski resort as an overseas operations manager for an upmarket ski chalet tour operator.  I was in charge of everything overseas, which for our company meant 38 chalets in 6 resorts in 3 countries, about 80 staff, 2 childcare centres, 6 vehicles.  Logistics, staff management, procurement, contracting, transfer days, troubleshooting.  Working in a ski resort sounds like fun, and it can be, but you have to work smart.  Really smart.  And the way I did this was to have a smart arse rule.


Ask yourself this question - what is the one thing that means more to you than work?


Everyone has something.  Even if you're the most driven workaholic entrepreneur, there's always something.


Next - block out your diary with when you will do this activity.


Then - work around this self-imposed rule.  If you do this, you're a smart arse and you have a smart arse rule. 


In the ski resort, my smart arse rule was this; go skiing at least 3 times a week, 4 times if all goes well.  This was broken down into; all day on one day off a week, then 3 afternoons (from 12 to 4) on the day before transfer day (which was often a 18 hour work day), the day after transfer day and one other day depending on my schedule.  This sounds like a lot, but even with that I worked about 60 hours a week.  I would start at 8am, finish up at 9pm and only go out in the evenings every now and then so as to keep my sleep quota.  As far as I was concerned the reason I was busting my gut in a stressful job in the Alps was so that I could go skiing.  Without the skiing, the very reason for being there was gone.  Skiing was (and still is) my passion.  


A real life example of the smart arse rule for city life would be if you are a parent and state that you want to see your kids at bedtime at least every other evening.  You allow yourself to work late on some nights if you need to but you block your diary to get home in good time on other nights.  Or - you are a football fan and buy tickets to your team's home matches.  Or - as a hard working couple, you make a date that Monday evening is movie night.  Or - as a martial arts enthusiast you dedicate 3 sessions a week to your passion at certain set times each week.


The important thing is to actually ask yourself what is the one thing more important than work.  Then - put these things in the diary up front and commit to them.  It could be a simple mental rule rather than a physical diary entry, but until you get this working for you, commit in writing.


The smart arse rule works because it forces you to work smart.  You might need to break out your laptop on the train, come in to the office early or schedule an evening conference call to fit everything in, but by committing to yourself first, you actually make it possible to work smart.  Then, if you work hard, that's a bonus too, but at least you'll be doing it for a reason.


Without the smart arse rule, how would you know if you are working smart?  By forcing yourself to work around self-imposed limitations, you develop skills over time to become effective in delivering your work commitment and at the same time - as a bonus - you reward yourself.


It is possible to work hard and smart.  You just need to be a smart arse. Get yourself a smart arse rule.

If You Knew You Couldn't Fail, What Would You Do?

Have you ever seen a baby learning to walk?  Of course you have.  Now, tell me how they do it.

I'm lucky to have four kids.  I didn't teach them to walk.  They didn't teach each other.  They just got up and had a go.  First of all they started to figure out how to pull themselves up to stand against the furniture.  Then they made one or two steps.  A few weeks later and they were walking.


We all first learnt by trial and error.  


Later in childhood, we start to learn from others.  We are taught.  We go to school.  It's quite amazing to have my eldest daughter read a book to me.  She's six.  6 months ago she couldn't read.


We are taught.


There's a third phase.  Once we know how things work, we can go figure things out for ourselves.  Some kids spend hours playing tennis, some spend hours programming, others spend hours and hours making things.  Some of these kids will become the best in the world at what they do.  Literally the best in the world.  In this phase we practice.  We seek guidance, we practice some more.  We put hours and hours in.  We make mistakes and learn from them.  We practice some more.


We are self-taught and we practice.


But then - we become adults.  Some people continue with trial and error (It's called 'learning on the job' in the business world.  Some are taught (it's called 'training' in the business world).  Some practice, work long hard hours, push themselves and become the best in the world at what they do.  I'm not sure what we call these people, but I admire them.


I am more thirsty for knowledge now than I have ever been in my life.  The more I learn the more I realise there is to learn.  And I want to be the best in the world at what I do.  Why?  It's simple.  There's very little in life that beats the feeling that you get when you say 'today I did what I do best!'


Today I will do what I do best.  Will you?


Imagine a team where every person can say that.  Can you imagine what that team would be able to achieve?  It would be extraordinary.  World beating.  In fact just writing this makes my hairs stand on end - it really is something special.  It's like watching the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race and seeing the winners win.  It's awesome.  


The thing about great teams is, 1 plus 1 equals 3.  The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.  Only it's not guaranteed.  Sometimes two egotistical geniuses equal less than two because they haven't figured how to collaborate well.


So - on a practical note then, how do we build great teams where every person does what they do best and on top of that build a winning team?  


How do we make that team possible?


Here, I think are the 5 main ingredients;


1. Allow people to make mistakes.  


If we make more mistakes, we learn more.  I'm not saying that we should aim to fail.  Rather we should always be 'doing'.  Doing something means you have the opportunity to learn.  If you don't do anything you won't make any mistakes, but then again you won't learn anything.  This is the thinking behind the phrase 'fail faster'.  It's not that you should aim to fail - instead, you should 'do more faster' - because that's how you'll learn.


Fear holds us back though.  We are afraid to make mistakes in case it's not seen as successful by our peers and egos.


My wife and I were talking the other day about why she is successful at what she does.  She does business development for a recruitment firm and she needs to figure out how to book meetings with HR Managers and then persuade them to use her firm's services.  She said that you can't book meetings without making phone calls, so she has to be very persistent to keep calling until she gets the meeting.  She will keep calling way long after other people have given up.  Most people fear the rejection, whereas she doesn't.  


Her motto is "if you knew you wouldn't fail, what would you do?"  Great advice indeed.


So - as a manager, I will always say to my team, 'make decisions and do stuff.  Better to do lots and be right 95% of the time than to do a little and be right 100% of the time'.  You'll learn faster and so will I.




2. Trust your colleagues and help them to learn from their mistakes


You can only truly build a successful team if there is true openness.   I need to be open with my intentions, emotions and reasoning.  By doing so, my colleagues can help me identify what I'm doing well and what I can do better and I will learn faster.  If I do this though I am opening myself up.  I am doing exactly the opposite of what most people do in business.  It needs mutual trust, respect and willing - and it needs to start at the top.




3. Design learning structures


A great example of this is how we used to run our software development cycles in one of my previous companies.  We planned our work in two week cycles.  This was pretty effective in terms of getting things done.  The important ingredient I think that actually made it successful was that after every cycle ('sprint') we set up a 'retrospective meeting'.  This was a simple meeting where we simply asked, 'what went well, what didn't go so well and how will we in future do more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff?'  Doing this systematically requires a regular meeting slot in the diary, an agenda and a habit.  It requires structure.


Good teams consciously create these structures to become learning teams.




4. Hire people that can handle this culture


This is critical.  If you believe that you want to build world class winning teams you need to hire accordingly.  Sure you need talent and experience.  I say they're over-rated.


Just because someone has knowledge and ingredients to make a great cake it doesn't mean that they will.  And just because someone was motivated to bake great cakes in the past doesn't mean that they will do so again in a different kitchen.


What really matters is
- does this person know how to apply themselves to a challenge?
- is this person willing to open themselves up and be fully transparent with their emotions, reasoning and intentions?
- are they able to give feedback to others in a helpful way?
- are they thirsty to be the best in the world at something?  




5. Go with the flow


You cannot tell people what motivates them.  In my experience, people do best what they are interested in, not necessarily what they are good at.  I might be quite good at filing and organising paperwork, it doesn't mean I'm interested in it.  Give me a reason to be interested in it or find me something to do that I am interested in and I will do it well.  Really well.


So - as people develop in your team, find opportunities for them and help them where possible to grow in your organisation to do what they do best.   Build the team around the capabilities you have and seek out new team members to fill the gaps if they exist (and make sure you follow the points in point 4).


To conclude


Great parent allow their children to make mistakes, they teach them all they can, and they give them wings to fly and pursue their own dreams.  


In a team, we must think of ourselves as parents of each other.


And every day, if we strive to be the best we can be in what we do we'll need to push ourselves to the limit and make a few mistakes. It's the mistakes that lead us to truth.


Benjamin Franklin once wrote, 


'Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries.  Truth is uniform and narrow; it does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of soul in order to encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified'


Fail faster. Act like a child and a parent at the same time. Be the best in the world at something every day.

Change

Things I learnt this week about change

Set the destination
Find the bright spots, then do more
Direct the script, but keep it simple
Shape the path, environment matters
Break habits to catalyse change
Big problems don't need big solutions, small solutions can solve big problems
Chunk it and keep the horizon near; small steps are easier than big ones
Develop you & your team to be able to make bigger steps
Identity is the strongest motivational lever there is
Behaviour is driven by identity and environment
Culture is just collective behaviour
Use social proof when you can to influence culture
Change the culture and anything is possible

Reading; "Switch", by Chip and Dan Heath

Thermodynamics, evolution, wealth and happiness

If I was to say to you that there's a fundamental foundation that links life, physics, wealth, happiness and effort, would you;
a) yawn?
b) laugh?
c) sit up and listen?

If c, read on. Recent reading and thinking has led me to the following conclusion;

Firstly, that the first and second law of thermodynamics hold the keys to the meaning of life. And secondly, progress and wealth are underpinned by an evolutionary mechanism that is universal.

Come again?

I guess I'll need to explain in more detail. I'm not sure I can do it in a single blog post, so bear with me as I  fire up a few synapses.

The first law of thermodynamics expresses that energy can be transformed, i.e. changed from one form to another, but cannot be created nor destroyed.

The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system.

i.e. - the universe has a finite amount of energy, the universe is an isolated physical system and energy will level out in this system.

The levelling out process is called entropy.  In it's most general sense one can regard entropy as the general decay that surrounds us.  A new car will eventually rust, a building will need new paint, food will rot, people grow old and stuff just generally falls apart.  New life however is sustained by the sun which provides energy for living creatures.

Life requires continued energy to be sustained otherwise it fades and dies. To stay alive, we need to eat and sleep.  (Doing nothing is not an option).  There's a certain amount of energy required to stay where we are; we have to keep walking forward to stand still.  Every day we need our 2 or 3 thousand calories of energy, we need to rejuvenate with our sleep.

If we do more than just stand still it requires effort.  If you want to be wealthy, it requires effort.  If you want to have a family and prolong your gene-pool, it requires effort.  There's effort required to stand still and yet more effort to more forward.

The effect of all of this extra effort is a temporary suspension of entropy.

We strive against a tide of entropy that surrounds us and the efforts we all make on a daily basis help drive humanity forward.  We have an inner drive and purpose to temporarily suspend entropy.  This drive, this striving, is the essence of life.  It gives us satisfaction, it gives us meaning and it gives us value.  I would even go so far as to suggest that it is the source of our happiness.

When considering the business landscape, you could see it in this way: businesses competing to create business models that temporarily deliver additional value.  Over time, new business models become the norm, become commoditised and so companies need to innovate (strive) to do more than stand still.  Those that succeed create wealth, those that don't decay and die.

Behind both humanity and business is a common evolutionary algorithm.  This evolutionary algorithm is a method to uncover (not by pre-determined means, but by trial and error), organism designs and business plan designs that are optimal for the environment in which they find themselves.

To make sense of life and to make sense of business, you could like me take the following view;

1. We are part of the fabric of life itself, iterations of the human species that are being continuously tweaked to be optimised for the environment we find ourselves in by an evolutionary method

2. We derive satisfaction (value) by striving to do more than to stand still and to suspend entropy as best we can

3. Businesses work by the same means, combining previous business knowledge into new business designs that can temporarily beat the competition (suspend entropy) and create value.  To win they must continuously innovate and embrace evolutionary methods in their architecture.

The laws of thermodynamics, together with an evolutionary mechanic are foundational in understanding the human need to strive and the business need to innovate.  One delivers satisfaction and happiness, the other value and wealth.  Businesses are but collections of humans so this should be no surprise.

If you are still reading this and wonder what I'm on to deliver such a stream of consciousness, there's two things you should know.  I once studied Theology and Religious Studies at University (but am currently an atheist) and that I've recently read "The Origin of Wealth" by Eric Beinhocker.  If you get a chance do read Beinhocker, it will help develop the thinking that I've scraped the surface of here.

How not to ask for a phone number

A real life lesson in simple usability improvements that can improve conversion rates.

My wife and I love the movies, so to celebrate Valentine's Day this weekend we'll be going to our local cinema to see "The Kings Speech".  I've heard it's very good.

I booked online with at the cineworld.co.uk site (@cineworld) and only just managed to book thanks to a rather horrible usability hurdle.  Here follows what I wrote to them using the contact pages after the experience.

Dear Cineworld

"...I wanted to share with you a usability problem I had with the payment pages.  If my experience is anything to go by it will be seriously hampering your conversion rates and if you fix it should improve your bottom line immediately...


It's to do with the validation of the mobile phone number.


I initially put in my number as follows;
077XXXXXXXX


The error message told me to add the country code. So I did;
+4477XXXXXXXX


The error message told me to only use digits.  So I did;
004477XXXXXXXX


Then the was another error message.  Can't remember exactly what it said.  To get through the validation process I needed to actually type;
4477XXXXXXXX


4 attempts!
From someone who works building websites for a living and has done so for the last 11 years!


It's quite possibly the worst validation experience I've ever  had.


Suggestions;
1. If you want to capture the data in that format tell them so in the form up front 
2. Alternatively have a drop down of country codes to select from with UK as default.  Then ask people to enter their number as normal in the field and get your programmers to remove the first zero and any spaces.


In essence - you're making it way too complicated.


Hope you find this useful..."

What's happened here?

I've seen this happen many times.

The developer says, "In order to send SMS confirmation messages, my system needs clean and correct numbers.  I need the country code, then the mobile number in the following format; [XXYYYYYYYYYY] (where X is the country code, no zeroes, no symbols and Y is the number, no spaces, no zero up front)".

The developer does not say, "How do people usually type in their mobile numbers?  How can I help them enter it in a way that is obvious for them and still helps me get the data in the format I need"

Don't blame the developer though.  The producer / product manager should be on top of this during the design process and the interaction designer should instruct the developer.

Cineworld, to be fair have built a pretty intuitive website and it's very easy to find and select a movie to book.

Funnily enough, Cineworld did populate the form with a suggestion format in the field.  I didn't see it, the light grey was so light it didn't register.  Then, when I got it wrong, I didn't have obvious instructions on what the format should have been.

The only way top really test this is to watch real people using it.  People with nothing to do with the design process. Learn from idiots like me, tweak the form, then measure the results.  How many more visitors converted into bookings did I make as a result of that change? Sounds obvious.

Be your own customer.

Teams, Hierarchy, Process and Start-Ups

How to think about structuring a start-up team.

One of the marvels of humanity is how when we work together we can progress so much more than when we work alone.  We all have different experience, skills and talent to offer, and businesses are just one example of people working together to achieve more than they could alone.

The challenge facing fast growth companies and start-ups is that they are in a constant state of change.  Actually, all businesses need to be in a constant state of change if they are to survive at all.  The environment around them changes and to provide value in that environment they need to refine and adapt.  The fact remains however that some businesses move faster than others, and start-ups tend move really fast.

And here's the thing, the bigger your team gets, the more structure you need to make the most of your resources.  By structure I don't just mean hierarchy, I also mean more clearly defined processes. Most people recognise that small companies need less structure and larger companies need more.

Things aren't that simple though.  It's not just size that matters. There are I think four major considerations at play when building an appropriate structure for the business (for that moment in time).

These four are "chunking", "scheduling", "size" and "risk".

1. "Chunking"

By chunking I mean; how easy is it to separate different tasks between different people?   It could be that (in say - a recruitment consultancy) one team looks after London, the other team look after New York.  Or - (in say - a law practice) one legal team looks after client A and another legal team looks after client B.  Where it's easy to do this, we often do because division of labour brings speed, expertise and efficiency.  As long as there are not too many dependencies between these teams, you can still run a fairly flat organisation with limited processes.

2. "Scheduling"

In some instances, many different tasks are required AND they need to be done in a certain order.  This is where it gets more difficult to manage with little hierarchy. Consider a major engineering project such as building a new bridge.  Many different teams are involved in a build process that has to happen in a certain order.  In such businesses, more hierarchy is required to get the job done, create the processes to pass the project along from a multitude of task owners.  It's not just that this is a lot of people, there are lots of complexities with dependencies that require order.

3. "Size"

Size is more obvious and is where we started out - the more people involved, the more hierarchies and process are needed.  Just because two businesses have the same number of people though, it doesn't mean they should have the same depth of hierarchy or body of process.  A recruitment consultancy with 10,000 staff will not need as much hierarchy and process as an oil exploration company with 10,000 staff.  In the first instance the recruitment consultants can work in small teams to independently mange their customers, develop business and attract candidates.  Maybe there's a central payroll system, CRM software or a local marketing team, but it can be quite a flat hierarchy.  The oil company will have far more specialists all needing to interact and more hierarchy depth is required.

4. "Risk"

Compare NASA to a theatre ticketing company.  In one case if a process fails, someone dies. In another case, the guest might not get a ticket.  In situations of high risk, it's likely that more controls are in place to manage resources tightly.

What about start-ups?

I find the four considerations above a useful starting point when thinking about structures that are needed for a start-up.

Some learnings;
- Understand that as you grow you'll need process, but only just enough to make it work.  Too much will suffocate productivity
- Build a foundational structure based on your thoughts around risk and scheduling considerations. Figure out how much scheduling is required to make things work.  Reduce dependencies where you can.
- Chunk work if you need to, but understand the different between "could chunk" and "should chunk"
- Accept that different parts of the organisation may require different levels of hierarchy and process.  Many people assume a company requires a standardised set of levels of management, this is a mistake.  Tech may need a totally different level of depth and structure to (say) sales
- when hiring people, try to understand what types of environment and culture they thrive in.  Hire not only for your current structure but try to anticipate what you'll need as you grow

Building an organisation framework requires understanding your current state, anticipating your future state and being able to find a balance between the two.  As both are always changing, you're never done.